Friday, March 23, 2012

Drinking at home

I was a bit distracted last month, so I missed the latest inflation data for Pittsburgh covering the 2nd half of 2011. The short story is gasoline is up in itself and you see the energy transportation costs filtering through a lot of other things. Other than gasoline, electricity costs over the year are +11 percent over the year. so even though "Utility (piped) gas service" is down 5.9% (the biggest drop in any category) overall household energy costs are up 7.5%.

Other than the natural gas costs coming down, the smallest price increase was in "Alcoholic Beverages" with an increase of 0.5 percent over the year. So in real terms, big drop in alcohol prices. What is up with that? It all adds up to one thing: the cheapest thing to do is to not travel and just drink at home. But why? I dunno. Maybe the cheaper natural gas is making it that much less expensive to boil the potato mash?

and when the subject of drinking and journalism comes up an obligatory mention of the region's only dedicated spirit beat reporter. Just a coincidence, but Yinzpiration (sic) interviews the man: Interview #51: Bill Toland